MANUEL GREGORIO ACOSTA
(1921-1989)
Original Signature Lithographs

An excellent opportunity to own an original signature lithograph from this internationally famous Mexican southwestern artist. Acosta was commissioned by Time Magazine to paint its cover of Cesar Chavez. Acosta's Time Magazine Portrait of Cesar Chavez hangs in the Smithsonian Institute National Portrait Gallery. His art has been exhibited in national and international museums.

Acosta's work was exhibited in the Olympic Games show at the American Embassy in Mexico City. Acosta also had a one-man exhibit at the CIA Building in Washington, D.C., as well as at the National Institute of Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

According to a professional art appraiser, the value of his work is expected to increase since rarity has much to do with the value of anything, including art. The very fact that Acosta is no longer painting may drive up the prices for his work. The Cycle of Life, seven limited edition original signature lithograph renditions were printed in 1974, which adds to their value by making them approximately twenty-nine years old and thus antique collectibles. There are only a limited number of these signed lithographs known to be in existence.

Born near Chihuahua Mexico in 1921, Manuel Gregorio Acosta rose above poverty to become an internationally renowned painter. His father had fought in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa, who is one of the most famous Mexican Revolutionaries, and one of Acosta's most vivid themes was the Mexican Revolution. Acosta worked under the banner of Gertrude Stein in France, the parlay of Peter Hurd in the United States, and the combined aesthetic wisdom of Andrew Wyeth. Acosta was a great artist whose work personified the tenderness and warmth often deemed "artist's sensitivity". Acosta had studied under the great Urbici Soler, the creator of one of the most famous Mexican monuments atop Mount Cristo Rey in Mexico.

His style was realistic, working with calipers to get proportions perfect. Five major themes characterized his work: bullfighters; flowers and fantasies; young children; people and the Mexican Revolution. One art publication described Acosta's work as a mixture of representational portraiture and landscape colored by the folk quality of Mexican Art. Acosta was in many ways a cultural activist. His cultural activism, which had roots in his love for Mexico, motivated him to paint people as he saw them and not as the dominant society would see them; stereotyped, commercialized, and romanticized.

Acosta was a legend, a mythic and magical sojourner in his homeland. He was a friend of humanity, and many loved him for being the breadth of a humanizing continuum; greatness at one end and humility at the other, without contradiction. Like Van Gogh and Michelangelo, at the time of his murder Acosta had just been through a darkness of the soul and was making transitions in his art that made him somewhat of a recluse. Acosta had the demeanor of a teddy bear, with a comfortable girth, friendly brown eyes, impressive bushy eyebrows and thinning hair, always covered with his trademark paper painters hat. He was the kind of person that children, animals and everyone instantly liked.

Acosta's passion for the multicultural U.S. Mexico Border precipitated his living in the United States, where his love for partying was only exceeded by his love for painting. His studio's wooden parquet floors were well worn by the impromptu parties and dances he had which lasted well into the next day. There was a gazebo on the front lawn of Acosta's studio for the nights in which he would gaze at the stars for inspiration. Like many famous artists before him, Acosta was a modest man who never bragged of his world-renowned fame, he wanted everyone to enjoy the beauty of his work. According to newspaper articles, while his paintings sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, at one of his major showings Acosta was wearing a new sport coat with the price and size tags still hanging on it. When he was asked why he was wearing a coat with the price tags still on it, Acosta replied, "I'm taking it back to the store in the morning". On the spur of the moment Acosta would also give away an expensive favorite painting to a friend.

But for all his frivolity and love of life Acosta was an enigma. On October 25, 1989, the dancing stopped and Acosta bled to death, laying face up in a pool of blood on the parquet floors he so dearly loved with a screwdriver through his heart. A young man from Juarez, Mexico was arrested for the bludgeoned death. According to newspaper accounts, Cesar Najera stated that he struck Acosta with a hammer about four times, once while Acosta was standing and three more times after Acosta fell to the parquet floor. Calmly chewing gum, while he was being interrogated, Najera stated that he also stabbed the artist in the heart several times with a screwdriver until Acosta stopped breathing. The 20-year-old Mexican national confessed to killing Acosta in a passionate drunken rage. His alleged motive for killing Acosta was revenge and a Mexican Judge sentenced him to 20 years in a Mexican prison. The eerie portrait of Najera painted by Acosta hung in the dead artist's studio.

Acosta was buried in the United States in a flag draped casket at Fort Bliss National Cemetery with full military honors to include a 21 gun salute. Fort Bliss, Texas is the largest military air defense training center in the United States. Acosta served in the United States Air Force during World War II. All of the mourners at Acosta's funeral were given brown paper bag artist hats that had become Acosta's signature, which he always wore while he painted, to remind himself of the misery and poverty which exists in the world. Like other great artists before him, Acosta took many dark secrets with him to the grave.

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